Saving only a part of animation?

[Dorian]

HI.

 

I'm planing to make a simple animation of a house, and i know that animation is time consuming.

 

So i'm asking if there is a way to save only a part of the animation in case of a power failure while rendering? So i can have at least something saved rather than rendering the whole thing all over again.

[Cad64]

When doing animation, it's best to render out individual images and then composite them into a movie file using movie making software like Autodesk Combustion, Adobe Premiere or any other software of this type. There's also a free program called Virtualdub that's supposed to be pretty good. Doing it this way will guarantee that you won't lose anything in case of a power failure. If you render out to an .avi file, you could get all the way to the end and then have a crash while rendering the last few seconds of the animation and end up losing everything and have to start all over again.

[Dorian]

Thanks Cad64

[Dorian]

On more question Cad64 if you don't mind:)

 

If i set the rendering frame by frame and not the whole thing, does the rendered images save automatically?

[Cad64]

You have to set the directory path so Max knows where to save the images. So, just create a folder and then point Max to that folder. http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=169506&seqNum=9

[Raudel Solis]

if you have set 3ds max to save the file then as it renders it saves what it has rendered,

so lets say your at frame 35 and the power goes out frames 1-34 will be saved and intact

35 may be messed up but thats fixed by removing/ editing in video software

[Raudel Solis]

ahr forgot 1 part

if you render frame by frame you have to click on save file and then click

files.. and rename the file to save AS each time or else it will over write the frame before

[Dorian]

But thats not an option if you save it as .avi format right?

[Cad64]

If you're saving as .avi format, (not recommended), then you are only saving one single video file, so no, that is not an option. You only have to "Save As" if you are rendering out individual frames to be compiled later.

[ThrashMetal]

so late reply but i still want to share what we did, cad is right, you should save it as individual images, in our case, we changed the render output to targa file, then once all the frames has been rendered, we used 3dsmax's ram player on the rendering button to compile the frames and create an avi file, worked well, reduced flickerings in our animation too..

[Dorian]

And what about the speed of the video? For example i render a frame by frame, then compile it in the ram player, how can i set the speed of the video? I like to render some interior for example and i want to make the speed to be twice slower. Any help on this?

[ThrashMetal]

if you want to reduce the speed of your animation, the best way to do it is to add frames to your animation, remember that the default number of frames when we open max is 100 and that is equivalent to merely 3 seconds,so adjust the frames to a higher number (this must also correspond to the travel distance your camera will go through, for example, is it logical to travel 100 meters for 3 seconds?, those sorts of stuff) and render it again. the only disadvantage is adding frames will add, of course, render time. try to estimate the travel distance of your camera in meters and proportion that to a logical estimated time in seconds, that way you can compute the normal number of frames using 100frames:3secs ratio.

 

another way to do it is to adjust the speed 1/2 slower at any movie maker software, this is not advisable since the video will be stretched and you will loose quality.